In the middle of 2020, I got an interview suggestion from one of the German fast-growing startups to join their team. Once we started the interview, I got the strict condition, “You need to relocate for this position”. I am the kind of person, who loves his country despite all and plans to live life there. But on the other hand, it’s Germany, a growing startup with a lot of new opportunities, connections, and of course, people. It’s a chance to get a blue card and travel through Europe without a visa and restrictions. Are you getting these chances often? As Eminem said once “Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?” And... I said no. After saying warm words to each other we ended the call.
As you may guess from the title of this article, it wasn’t a final decision.
After thinking a bit about the opportunity I thought, “Why not? Why not try, I love new challenges…”. Anyway, if I don’t like Germany I can return anytime.
I dropped a message to my future boss saying that I changed my mind and that if I pass the interview I will agree to relocate. We discussed all the edges of our cooperation, I passed the interview, and coding challenge and we signed the contract.
We forgot about an important detail: It’s 2020. It’s COVID19. It’s lockdown.
By making an agreement that we will cooperate remotely until the conditions will allow us to relocate, we started preparation. I have collected all my documents, diplomas, certificates, and all needed for this process.
The most interesting part starts now.
First of all, after getting all my documents and pre-confirmation from the FEA of Germany I needed to get an appointment at the embassy. But, the embassy is closed, due to pandemics, I need to wait.
It took a few months for me to get an appointment in the embassy and then around 3 weeks to get our visas.
I moved.
A similar process started here, to get the blue card, but it was already stressless as I knew that I am here already and nothing can interfere to get it.
I think I will continue to share about our adventures here, but for now, I definitely need to learn German.
Tschüss!
